Bethesda, Maryland; Jakarta, Indonesia; Colombo, Sri Lanka —The tsunamis that struck south and southeast Asia on December 26, 2004, hit close to home for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a company that manages development assistance projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and has been active in the region since the early 1970s. Communications in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe focused on verifying the safety of all DAI international and local employees. Simultaneously, project staff in Indonesia and Sri Lanka began assisting the U.S. government and international aid organizations with urgent relief efforts.

“Our role here is different from what we normally do,” said Bruce Spake, Vice President of DAI’s Crisis Mitigation and Recovery Group. “DAI is known for work that lays the foundation for long-term development. What we can provide in the relief effort now is our knowledge of local communities in both countries, and ways to move funds in fast and efficient ways on behalf of the U.S. government’s emergency program.”

In Indonesia

The Support for Peaceful Democratization Project, funded by USAID, is normally in the business of disbursing grants to local and international civil society organizations. Since 1998, the project has provided grants management and technical assistance for media programs, voter education campaigns, and conflict mediation and reconciliation initiatives across all of Indonesia, with a special focus on troubled provinces such as Aceh. Faced with a different kind of challenge in the tsunami crisis, DAI’s 25-member project team has adapted quickly to accelerate delivery of grants targeted specifically at communities in Aceh.

Within the first few days of the crisis, the team identified unmet needs and obstacles to delivering supplies, and relied on its years of field experience in Aceh to organize a delivery system for grants. Project leaders contacted partners with expertise in emergency response to set up an initial coordination meeting. Within the first week, grants valued at more than $850,000 were awarded to local and international organizations for relief activities that included deploying trucks to establish a land bridge between Banda Aceh and Medan, purchasing generators and communications equipment, and treating contaminated water. Total disbursements to date now exceed $1.6 million in grants.

The SPD project office in Banda Aceh, which was established in 1999, was washed away in the tsunami. Less than two weeks later, the project had reopened at a new location, which serves as a communications hub, flexible office space, meeting facility, and sleeping quarters for U.S. government staff and DAI staff who rotate in from Jakarta as necessary.

DAI has also provided critical technology assistance in the form of geographic information systems (GIS). Typically used to track field results in the course of long-term development projects, GIS maps are helping DAI specialists plan logistics for the relief effort. To ensure that redundancies are minimized, the project staff is coordinating with other agencies active in the area, including the World Food Programme and Bakosurtanal, the Indonesian National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping. These data and satellite imagery showing the location of inundated areas help all agencies to focus immediate effort on those areas where people have suffered and lost the most.

In Sri Lanka

Sixteen-hour days have become the norm for 50 DAI project employees in Sri Lanka, particularly those who work from the two field offices on the east coast in Ampara and Trincomalee districts. In the district capital of Ampara, the DAI office represented the only international presence on the ground before the tsunami; it now serves as the focal point for coordination meetings among international aid organizations operating in the region.

The main focus of DAI’s efforts is to assist USAID in rapidly disbursing grants to both local and international organizations carrying out relief and reconstruction activities. Having worked on behalf of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Sri Lanka since February 2003—providing grants to local NGOs, student groups, media, and civic organizations that implement community self-help activities—DAI staff have an extensive base of knowledge and a wide network of relationships. They’re in a position to act quickly.

“We’ve been working here for two years to ensure that opportunities for peace are maximized in conflict-prone areas. Now we are working with these same local groups to identify immediate and post-emergency needs in the tsunami-affected communities and distribute our in-kind assistance as quickly as possible,” said Laurie Pierce, DAI's Chief of Party for the OTI Sri Lanka program. Her team has programmed approximately $840,000 in grants over the past four weeks, and has more in the pipeline.

As Recovery Continues

Options for medium-term responses are now in discussion as the one-month mark of the earthquake and tsunamis approaches. Using participatory processes, DAI staff in Indonesia and Sri Lanka will continue to assess needs as they develop. Bethesda-based crisis recovery specialist, Barb Lauer has just arrived in Sri Lanka for a one month assignment. “Our team here will now begin assessing the protection needs of the most vulnerable victims and we will refine our programs to fit these needs”, she said. Likely medium-term activities in both countries include equipment support to government agencies and select local organizations, and temporary cash and/or food-for-work programs to help clear debris, open transportation facilities, and generate short-term employment for those who are now jobless.

Update 1/26/05: Click here for congressional testimony from USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios about relief efforts

About DAI
Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) is a global consulting firm providing social and economic development solutions to governments, communities, and companies with projects in developing and transitioning countries. Founded in 1970 and headquartered in the Washington, D.C., area, DAI now includes companies in Brazil, South Africa, Palestine, and the United Kingdom. DAI’s 2,000 employees work in 75 countries. Clients include international development agencies, international lending institutions, global corporations, and host country governments.

For more information, please contact:
Jennifer Collier D'agostino, DAI
301-492-5128
Jennifer_D'agostino@dai.com